Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All
Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
Twenty-seventh session
Summary record of the 375th meeting*
Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Wednesday, 13 September 2017, at 3 p.m.
Chair: Mr. Brillantes
Contents
Organizational matters
Closure of the session
The meeting was called to order at 3.10 p.m.
Organizational matters
The Chair, giving an overview of the work completed during the twenty-seventh session, said that the Committee had engaged in interactive dialogues with the delegations of Ecuador, Indonesia and Mexico. It had adopted concluding observations on the third periodic reports of Ecuador and Mexico and the initial report of Indonesia, as well as lists of issues for Albania and Tajikistan and lists of issues prior to reporting for Guatemala and Libya. In preparation for its dialogues with the reporting States, the Committee had met with representatives of civil society organizations and the national human rights institution of Mexico, as well as desk officers from bodies such as the International Organization for Migration.
The Committee had adopted two draft general comments to be issued jointly with the Committee on the Rights of the Child. One was on the general principles regarding children in the context of international migration, and the other was on the obligations of States of origin, transit, destination and return regarding children in the context of international migration. The Committee had also been briefed on the priorities of the new Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants and had met with the Adviser on Migration and Human Rights of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to receive an update on the preparatory process for the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration and a number of other issues.
Discussions had been held on working methods, the development of a media strategy and the Committee’s contribution to the report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the global compact. Ms. Dzumhur, Ms. Landazuri de Mora and Mr. Ünver had been nominated to take part in the working group established by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) to ensure that women’s rights were addressed in the global compact.
He and the other Committee members had briefed the Committee on their intersessional activities. The Committee had decided to hold a half-day of general discussion on the rights of migrants, especially women and children, during its twenty-eighth session. It would continue to cooperate with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and with trade unions based in Geneva.
He would address the Third Committee of the General Assembly on 20 October 2017 and would hold meetings with various key actors, including the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Migration, Ms. Louise Arbour, to promote mainstreaming and ratification of the Convention. Press statements would be issued following the dialogue with the Third Committee and on International Migrants Day, to be observed on 18 December 2017. He would attend a meeting on follow-up to treaty body recommendations in late October 2017 at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.
To conclude, he wished to thank the departing members, Ms. Castellanos Delgado, Mr. Ceriani Cernadas and Ms. Dicko, for their contribution to the work of the Committee.
Mr. Nowosad (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights), thanking the Chair for his excellent leadership, said that he wished to commend the Committee on its cooperation with United Nations agencies, special procedures mechanisms and other treaty bodies, which demonstrated a real will to comply with General Assembly resolution 68/268 on strengthening and enhancing the effective functioning of the human rights treaty body system.
Closure of the session
After the customary exchange of courtesies, the Chair declared the twenty-seventh session of the Committee closed.
The meeting rose at 3.45 p.m.